Guillermo del Toro to Produce The Secret Garden

Universal Pictures is making plans for a new big screen version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. Deadline reports that Beasts of the Southern Wild screenwriter Lucy Alibar will adapt the 1911 novel with Guillermo del Toro and Mark Johnson producing.

The Secret Garden has been adapted several times in the last century including as a 1993 film directed by Agnieszka Holland. The story follows a 10-year old girl, Mary Lennox, who befriends a crippled boy her age, Colin and who discovers the titular garden, a magical place that, each time the pair visit, begins to heal Colin’s disablity.

The site notes that this new version, still without a director, will likely be moved from England to the American South but that it will keep the early 20th century time period.